Free Basketball Picks - 3/21/06

Raptors @ Knicks: Two of the League's most up-and-down teams meet in New York. While both Toronto and the Knicks have spent most of the year in the gutter they both have shown signs of life, particularly New York with a wins versus the Detroit Pistons. There's no postseason significance here, but it should be a close game nonetheless. Road victory here for the Toronto Raptors. Predicted Score: Toronto wins 109-104

Pacers @ Grizzlies: The Pacers may have difficulty sizing up Pau Gasol without Jermaine O'Neal. The X-Factor for the Pacers is Anthony Johnson, who could very well have a productive game against the Grizzlies. For Memphis it's Mike Miller, who leads the NBA in 20-pt games off the bench. Who'll show up? This should be a close game. Predicted Score: Memphis wins 87-83

Warriors @ Spurs: Golden State is a lesser version of the Spurs. They score enough to win most of the time but don't play good enough defense. Richardson is going to have to pass out of double-teams frequently and will rely on the supporting cast to pick up some of the slack. Unless he somehow scores 30 Golden State has no chance. The Spurs are expected to be a blowout winner here. Predicted Score: San Antonio wins 97-88

Lead Management Software

Efficient lead management is the cornerstone to good sales. Without some sort of lead management system, keeping track of follow-up calls, meetings, and details relating to prospective clients can be nearly impossible. With proper lead management tools, all the information you will ever need to convert prospects into clients will be at your finger tips.

One of the first things necessary for good lead management is an efficient tool to organize records with. Whether a company is a one man shop, or a multinational organization, the efficiency of lead management can be essential to the health of the business.

A good lead management system allows business owners to organize and streamline the process of converting potential customers into clients. From the moment of contact, a sales representative should be able to add personal data and notes to client records. Follow up scheduling should be as easy as possible. Making a sale is often a matter of remembering the details and doing what you say you'll do when you say you'll do it.

After a good lead management tool has been selected, learn it and use it to follow up quickly. In the instant world of Internet, email and phones, a quick follow-up can make or break a sale. Having a good stock of marketing materials handy to close a deal is also very helpful. Ideally, your lead management software will allow for the sending of marketing material with a few key strokes.

Before you can use your lead management tool, a plan to generate leads is needed. Perhaps it's an online request form, an 800 number, a catalog, a magazine ad or maybe all of the above. With the right software, Internet leads are easy to track, allowing business owners to see what is working and what is not. Magazine and TV ads are also very effective, but can be harder to track.

When ever you contact a potential client, use your lead management tool to keep track of the details of your conversations. The more personal details you include, the easier it will be to connect with your potential client in the future. Making a personal connection to your client is often the key to making a sale.

Once you make initial contact with a potential client, you'll want to follow-up. Keep in front of your potential client. Even if the potential client doesn't need your product or service now, maybe he or she will down the road. If you can manage to get in front of your audience enough for them to remember your company when it comes time to make the purchase decision, they will be likely to choose your company.

Proper lead management without the right tool can be an overwhelming task. With a tool to organize and prioritize all of your lead management tasks, following up with potential customers can be a real pleasure. All their information will be right in front of you, and you will be able to provide them any information they need instantaneously.

The Death of the Music Industry in 2008

The music business as we know it is dying a fast death and gone are those days of pressing up and selling CDs. That's bad news for those still playing the same old music game but definitely not bad news for those artists and labels willing to ride the new wave. But all is not lost with the music industry. Emerging trends in online marketing and social media optimization has created new opportunities to market to a larger audience. Those who survive will see the need to step outside of the traditional label relationship and be more cost effective while still being able to make money and have longevity in the business. Those who fail will continue to do what they've been doing. Nevertheless, there are some hot new trends to jump start any music promotion campaign in 2008.

8 MUSIC PROMOTION TRENDS FOR 2008

Viral Videos: We saw what it did for Soulja Boy. Imagine what a little creativity could do in your online promotions.

Digital Sales: It's killed CD sales but created new sales opportunities (i.e. ringtones, mobile marketing, etc). Combine your digital sales with your Myspace, Facebook, & social media marketing strategy.

Free Music: It's not completely free but funded by advertisers and sponsors. Heard of RCRD LBL or Spiral Frog? Find out how Puma & other advertisers are helping their artists promote their songs.

Online PR: Print media is always a great source of publicity but notice how magazines are shrinking in size and becoming less content & way too much ads. Besides, online PR gets your message out quicker and to a larger audience.

Blog, Blog, & Blog: Besides being a great tool to stay in touch with your audience, blogging also helps to optimize your search engine rank.

Guerilla Marketing: Nothing beats in your face marketing that you can't seem to avoid.

Control at the Hands of Your Audience: It worked for Radiohead when they let their fans name the price of their CD. It could work for you.

New media technologies: Myspace, Facebook, Ning, Bebo, Joost TV, Goodstorm Mixtapes. Need I say more.

Small Business Accounting Software Reviews

Small business accounting software reviews mainly focus on contents of profit and loss account. It is also known by several other titles such as income statement, statement of earnings, statement of operations and profit and loss statement. While the balance sheet, as a stock/position statement, reveals the financial condition of a business at a particular point of time, the profit and loss account portrays, as a flow statement, the operations over/during a particular period of time. The period of time is an accounting period.

Since the purpose of every business firm is to earn profit, the operations of a firm in a given period of time will truly be reflected in the profit earned by it. Thus, the income statement/profit and loss account of a firm reports the results of operations in terms of income/net profit in a year. The profit and loss account can be presented broadly in two forms: the usual account form and step form.

In operational terms, the accounting report that summarizes the revenue items, the expense items and the difference between them (net income) for an accounting period is called the income statement. There are three contents of the profit and loss account: revenues, expenses and net income/profit/loss.

Revenues can be defined as the income that accrues to the firm by the sale of goods/services/assets or by the supply of the firm's resources to others. Alternatively, revenues mean the value that a firm receives from its customers. The value/income can arise from three sources: sale of products/goods/services, supply of firm resources to others, and sale of assets like production plants, investments, and so on. The cost of earning revenue is called expenses. An important item of expense appearing in the profit and loss account is the cost of goods sold. The difference between revenues and expenses is net profit. The profit and loss account may also show the appropriation of the net profits between dividends paid to the shareholders and retained earnings/ amount transferred to reserves and surplus.

Can Hypnosis Help You to Lose Weight

Hypnosis is a natural and powerful state of mind. As a matter of fact you enter a state of hypnosis many times per day. A trance is another term used in place of hypnosis. For example, anytime you are driving and you don't remember if you pasted your exit, you're in a trance or a light state of hypnosis. Anytime you are watching a television program and you are engrossed in the story... you are in a trance which is a light state of hypnosis. It is not difficult to experience hypnosis, you are in and out of trance that the real effort is snapping out of it.

Hypnosis is effortless and natural, your mind is comfortable "zoning" out and coasting on autopilot. Think about how easy it is to drive your car, tie your shoes or eat a bag of chips. You may not have realized how easy it is to experience a light trance until I just mentioned it right now. Think about sitting at the movie theatre and holding a box of popcorn, how long does it take for you to become aware that you ate too much? Usually when it is gone. That is unconscious behavior, eating until you are stuffed is another form of trance. It is simply a habit, the movie starts you eat popcorn. No matter how good your intention is you still over eat because you are swept up in the moment and became hypnotized by the movie and eating and didn't regain awareness until your stomach cried out with pain.

Now you can use the power of hypnosis to not only break negative habits like overeating food like sweets, and chocolate but also to lose weight. Hypnosis is an excellent way to lose weight. It helps reprogram your unconscious mind, which is where all habits and beliefs reside. The reason hypnosis is so effective for weight loss is because people eat out of habit, rarely than physical hunger. If you only ate when you were hungry you would be eating about half of what you currently consume. People eat for comfort and boredom instead of for fuel. This is learned behavior, and it can be unlearned. Hypnosis goes directly to the root of the problem and offers a better solution. The mind is an obedient servant and will take direction that is in harmony of its values.

Repetition and conditioning is the key to reprogramming the unconscious mind. You should reinforce suggestions daily until you are unconsciously engaging in the desired behavior. Give hypnosis a try, you have nothing to lose except a few pounds.

Tips For Taking a Caribbean Vacation During Hurricane Season

The official Caribbean hurricane season stretches from June 1 - November 30. It's rare to see a large storm in either June or November and most major hurricanes occur between August and October, with the peak season usually being September.

The upside is that prices are lower for the Caribbean during this time and resorts are less crowded. So what do you do if you want to get away during hurricane season?

Buy Travel Insurance

You must buy the trip cancellation insurance before the storm is announced, otherwise it will be deemed a pre-existing condition, so always purchase insurance the same day you book your trip to be safe. Most travel insurance policies will cover a trip disrupted because of a hurricane when you are forced to arrive late or leave early for your trip, but you'll be reimbursed only for the affected days until the airport or resort reopens. You will usually be reimbursed for the days you are forced to stay at a resort during a hurricane, but be sure to always read the fine print on your policy to make sure you know what they will actually cover.

Try to Avoid the Storms

Track hurricanes online with weather websites during the season. Some good sites include:

The National Weather Service - National Hurricane Center

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

Hurricane & Storm Tracking for the Atlantic & Pacific Oceans

http://hurricane.terrapin.com

Hurricane News and Information

http://www.hurricanetrack.com

Weather.com Tropical Storm Center

http://www.weather.com/newscenter/tropical/

Pick Your Location Well

When planning a trip to the Caribbean during hurricane season, it is good to know that hurricanes are less likely the further south you go. The islands of Aruba, Bonaire, Curacao, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and St. Vincent, including the islands below them, are the least hit by hurricanes. However, as Grenada discovered in 2004 with Hurricane Ivan, never say never and keep in mind that hurricanes are unpredictable.

Go on a Cruise

The good thing about cruises is that they can usually sail around the worst of a storm. And today's ships are extraordinarily safe and with the advanced weather tracking available today, bad weather is something they can avoid. The downside is that the cruise line always reserves the right to reschedule port calls and change itineraries for weather-related reasons and therefore you may not get to visit the places you had hoped to.

Pick a Resort That Offers a "Hurricane Guarantee"

Recently, many of the largest resorts and resort chains, have started instituting a "hurricane guarantee," offering guests their money back for days lost to bad weather. For example, in the unlikely event that hurricane force winds (as defined by the U.S. National Weather Service) directly hit the Sandals or Beaches resorts while you are a guest, interrupting the use of all the included activities, Sandals or Beaches Resorts will offer a free replacement vacation to be taken at any Sandals or Beaches Resort of your choice. Go to http://www.best-family-beach-vacations.com/caribbean-hurricane-season.html for more resorts that offer hurricane guarantees.

Make The Best Of It

If you do get caught on vacation during a hurricane, try to make the best of it. As long as there is no danger present, relax indoors and focus on other activities.

My husband and I got caught in the Mayan Riviera, Mexico during hurricane Keith in 2000. He was my boyfriend t that time and unbeknownst to me, he planned to propose on our second evening there. We got dressed for dinner and arrived at the hotel restaurant to find it boarded up. We went to the hotel lobby, everyone was being evacuated from the hotel to one farther up the coast. We ran back to our room, packed and got on the next bus out - not the evening my husband had planned!

When we checked into our room at the new hotel a few hours later, he still had the engagement ring burning a hole in his pocket. The winds were blowing and it was raining so the romantic walk on the beach he had been hoping for was out. He couldn't put it off any longer so he dropped to one knee and proposed then and there. It was definitely a memorable evening, hurricane and all!

Banana Costs Tsonga the Australian Open Title

It's amazing how a harmless looking and cheap fruit that so many people tell you is good for you can be so expensive!

Well in the case of Tsonga at this years Australian Open, this yellow peril could well have cost him $$$millions!

The reality is that the Australian Open dream for Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is at an end but did we really expect him to win?

We were all (including me) excited and in awe of his destruction of Nadal in the semi final where we all uttered words we never thought we would about the Spaniard - Overpowered, Slow, One-dimensional!! Maybe the over the top (but deserved) press coverage following the match had pushed Tsonga over the finish line and into the winners circle in our minds!

What many people forgot was that the final was another day, against another opponent and on a stage that Tsonga had never been to - a Grand Slam Final! So what happened, why did he not win?

Well the bottom line is that Djokovic is a great player and does present a different set of problems than Nadal.

He serves better and bigger and his groundstrokes are harder and flatter and ultimately more attacking. Even those differences were enough to turn Tsonga into the defender in the points more often than in the Nadal match, where apart from the fact he was obviously in "THE ZONE" he was more often than not the aggressor.

Having said that is there anything he could have done - well maybe yes!!

Having taken the first set with a piece of inspiration, he found himself 2 sets to 1 down and looking tired in the fourth (don't forget he had never played a 5 set match before).

Then suddenly, Djokovic starts to grab his legs and looks in agony - he even failed to move to several shots and others (especially his forehand) failed to get over the net because he was unable to push off into the shot. Was this now Tsongas title?

Well Djokovic well within his rights, called for the trainer and took a medical time out and Tsonga sat down waiting.

Big Mistake!

Although many view the calling of trainers, gamesmanship and in some cases cheating, they are allowed and if used right are tactically as important as deciding to go cross court or down the line.

For Djokovic, he had time to get his legs massaged as well as the opportunity to eat a bar (minimal digestion time) and take on some hydration.

Especially because he was looking weary himself, Tsonga should have done exactly the same thing and USED THE RULES!

BIGGER MISTAKE!

Apart from not taking the timeout, what did I see him do - have a drink and a BANANA!

I can't tell you how frustrating it is to see players eating bananas!

BANANAS ARE NOT INSTANT SOURCES OF ENERGY!

They take hours to digest and just divert blood to the digestive system instead of to the muscles and brain where you need them most!

So the injury time out obviously helped Djokovic and without question hindered Tsonga who on the face of it did nothing different in the last few games whereas Djokovic certainly kicked on a bit which was enough to see him sprint over the finish line to his first Grand Slam!

How a Professional tennis player in a Grand Slam Final was allowed to eat a banana at such a crucial stage of the match is staggering and whilst it may not have meant Tsonga would have won the match (even if he won the 4th set) it certainly would not have helped matters.

Another case of how the small details can add up to major factors!

How will you look at the bananas the next time you are in the Supermarket?

Some Common Tips About Insuring More Than One Property

If you are one of the fortunate few who has more than one property, you should consider yourself to be sitting in the driver's seat as for as your journey of life is considered. You could be the lucky owner of a holiday home situated some miles away from your property in the city. You may be using the city property to lead your daily life and might be travelling on holidays or weekends to rewind in your holiday home. Either way, you are the owner of some assets that are real jackpots. However, to ensure that both the personal properties are safe and free from any major or minor risk, it is very important that you think of having comprehensive and complete property insurance. The insurance should take into account all the property that you may own and should not restrict to the one that is occupied by you. You may be required to go for good property insurance for unoccupied and vacant homes. This is indeed a tough job because many property insurance companies are wary about insuring empty, unoccupied or vacant homes or properties.

You should be aware of the fact that it is quite possible to cover all your properties under one comprehensive property insurance policy. However, it is easier said than done because many insurers would be more comfortable selling you individual policies. Otherwise, what insurers prefer to do would be to insure the main property and then are comfortable adding additional properties as an extra. Though there is nothing wrong, there is a limitation to the number of properties that can be attached to the main property. Further more, going in for such a type of property insurance could result in under insuring the other properties that are attached as a part of the main property.

So if you really are keen on insuring more than one property under a good and effective property insurance scheme, then it is always advisable to take the advice and suggestion of some good property and insurance consultant. There are literally dozens if not scores of insurance companies and each one of them have a separate yardstick that they adopt. Hence, it would always be preferable to take the help of a professional so that you are not in the losing side when it comes to property insurance, particularly, if you are the owner of more than one personal property. You should learn to be patient, take time off to gather as much information as possible. Once you have decided to go for a property insurance policy, you should carefully read the terms and conditions, before signing the contract.

Hand And Foot Card Game Directions

What are the Hand and Foot card game directions? This version of canasta is played with two sets of cards, a hand and a foot, unlike traditional canasta which is played with a just a hand. Here are your basic rules of play.

In Hand and Foot, you pick a partner and sit facing him/her. You will work as a team to beat the other team. First shuffle five or six decks together, including the jokers, and deal 11 cards to each player. This becomes their hand. Deal 11 more to each player face down, this will be their foot and cannot be looked at until all of the cards in their hand are played. Place the rest of the cards in the center of the table and turn over the first card.

The player to the left of the dealer will pick up 2 cards from the draw pile and to end his/her turn lay one down on the discard pile. Alternatively you can pick up cards from the discard pile instead of picking up two new cards from the draw pile, but, you must be able to use the bottom card, and it has to be used during that turn.

The aim of the games is to get rid of all of the cards in your hand and then all of the cards from your foot. This is done by melding. A meld is a set of three to seven cards of equal rank placed face up on the table. A meld cannot have fewer than three cards.

After a meld of three or more cards is laid down, you continue to add to it until there are seven. Then it becomes a Book. You can meld cards of any rank from A, K, Q... down to 3.

In hand and foot Deuces and Jokers are wild. They can be used in melds as long as there is at least one more real card than wild card in the meld. You cannot have a meld of wilds cards only. There are two kinds of melds. A clean meld has no wilds and may become a red book. A dirty meld has wilds and may become a black book.

Melds are laid face up for all to see, while complete books are piled upside down and a card is placed on top, face up to show the type, a red card for a clean red book, a black card for a dirty black book. Cards of equal rank can be played on completed books, but wild cards cannot be played on books.

You score points for cards in melds and books. If you did not go out, you lose points for cards in your hand and foot at the end of the game. Hand and foot card games end when someone gets rid of all the cards in their hand and foot.